August 20, 2017

The howler of "moral authority" and, not Trump, but the GOP

For days we have suffered a savage bombardment by cliché — the tiresome charge that Donald Trump lacks the "moral authority" to be president of the United States. This is of course true, if by morality one simply means human decency. He also lacks the necessary intelligence, competence and judgment to be president. In sum, Trump is presidentially lacking in every way, which most Americans understood from his political get-go. Clichéd salvos now clarify nothing in terms of Trump. What has been clarified is that the pathological absence of human decency should be the Republican Party's 2018 slogan.

Upon seeing headlines such as the AP's, "GOP Doubts and Anxieties about Trump Burst into the Open," one is at first teased into thinking that the above assessment is perhaps too dire. Maybe there exists — however narrowly targeted — some broad-based GOP decency after all. One then reads the AP's story, and one chastises oneself for having been so foolish. Those GOP doubts and anxieties bursting into the open are but mealy-mouthed whimperings voiced by a handful of Republican nobodies. Sen. Bob Corker remains the only GOP pol to state the resoundingly obvious: that Donald Trump is mentally unstable and dangerously incompetent.

The AP foregrounds its story by writing that "behind the high-profile denunciations" such as Corker's, "scores of other, influential Republicans … across nine states … expressed worries about whether Trump has the self-discipline and capability to govern successfully." We then learn that about half of these Republicans "insisted on anonymity" — thus their bursts into the open are closed — and that by "influential," the AP means insignificant.

The utterly forgettable and rudely ushered-out House majority leader Eric Cantor, for instance, tells the AP that Trump's Charlottesville remarks were "a turning point." An obscure "Georgia-based GOP operative who did not vote for Trump" says "It's impossible to see a scenario under which [Trump's administration] is sustainable under a four-year period." An Ohio Republican state treasurer candidate — to repeat, a state treasurer candidate — says "I was never one that was convinced that the president [could lead] but I was certainly willing to stand by the president on critical issues once he was elected. Now … that progress is all negated." (Say again?) A Kentucky Republican state senator — to repeat … oh, never mind — called Trump's Charlottesville comments "more than a gaffe." Another state senator, this one in South Carolina, says to Trump's "discredit, he's been maddeningly inconsistent in advancing [conservative] policies." And the chairman of Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District Republican Party — whoa! — says "the president remains an ill-artful, ill-timed speaker who uses Twitter too often."

Neither the currently serving U.S. House majority leader nor whip nor speaker nor Senate majority leader is quoted in condemnation of Trump, and for that matter, the above quotes aren't particularly condemnatory. "Importantly," adds the AP rather sheepishly, "the Republicans interviewed did not line up behind some course of action or an organized break with the president."

Why bother? The time for "some course of action" was when Trump led his racist campaign of birtherism — barring that, when he mocked a disabled reporter or when he bragged of grabbing pussy or when he called Obama the "founder of ISIS" or when he attacked a "Mexican" judge or when he made a presidential issue of his penis size or when, or when, or when.

What has been clarified, then, is merely what has been clarified time and again: that the pathological absence of human decency should be the Republican Party's 2018 slogan. I still suspect much of the party will come around — after Trump's sixth, tenth and fifteenth Charlottesville-like remarks — but its coming around will occur only as a self-serving, self-preserving phenomenon. It won't contain even a dram of the "moral authority" that Trump, too, has never possessed.

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The howler of "moral authority" and, not Trump, but the GOP

For days we have suffered a savage bombardment by cliché — the tiresome charge that Donald Trump lacks the "moral authority" to be president of the United States. This is of course true, if by morality one simply means human decency. He also lacks the necessary intelligence, competence and judgment to be president. In sum, Trump is presidentially lacking in every way, which most Americans understood from his political get-go. Clichéd salvos now clarify nothing in terms of Trump. What has been clarified is that the pathological absence of human decency should be the Republican Party's 2018 slogan.

Upon seeing headlines such as the AP's, "GOP Doubts and Anxieties about Trump Burst into the Open," one is at first teased into thinking that the above assessment is perhaps too dire. Maybe there exists — however narrowly targeted — some broad-based GOP decency after all. One then reads the AP's story, and one chastises oneself for having been so foolish. Those GOP doubts and anxieties bursting into the open are but mealy-mouthed whimperings voiced by a handful of Republican nobodies. Sen. Bob Corker remains the only GOP pol to state the resoundingly obvious: that Donald Trump is mentally unstable and dangerously incompetent.

The AP foregrounds its story by writing that "behind the high-profile denunciations" such as Corker's, "scores of other, influential Republicans … across nine states … expressed worries about whether Trump has the self-discipline and capability to govern successfully." We then learn that about half of these Republicans "insisted on anonymity" — thus their bursts into the open are closed — and that by "influential," the AP means insignificant.

The utterly forgettable and rudely ushered-out House majority leader Eric Cantor, for instance, tells the AP that Trump's Charlottesville remarks were "a turning point." An obscure "Georgia-based GOP operative who did not vote for Trump" says "It's impossible to see a scenario under which [Trump's administration] is sustainable under a four-year period." An Ohio Republican state treasurer candidate — to repeat, a state treasurer candidate — says "I was never one that was convinced that the president [could lead] but I was certainly willing to stand by the president on critical issues once he was elected. Now … that progress is all negated." (Say again?) A Kentucky Republican state senator — to repeat … oh, never mind — called Trump's Charlottesville comments "more than a gaffe." Another state senator, this one in South Carolina, says to Trump's "discredit, he's been maddeningly inconsistent in advancing [conservative] policies." And the chairman of Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District Republican Party — whoa! — says "the president remains an ill-artful, ill-timed speaker who uses Twitter too often."

Neither the currently serving U.S. House majority leader nor whip nor speaker nor Senate majority leader is quoted in condemnation of Trump, and for that matter, the above quotes aren't particularly condemnatory. "Importantly," adds the AP rather sheepishly, "the Republicans interviewed did not line up behind some course of action or an organized break with the president."

Why bother? The time for "some course of action" was when Trump led his racist campaign of birtherism — barring that, when he mocked a disabled reporter or when he bragged of grabbing pussy or when he called Obama the "founder of ISIS" or when he attacked a "Mexican" judge or when he made a presidential issue of his penis size or when, or when, or when.

What has been clarified, then, is merely what has been clarified time and again: that the pathological absence of human decency should be the Republican Party's 2018 slogan. I still suspect much of the party will come around — after Trump's sixth, tenth and fifteenth Charlottesville-like remarks — but its coming around will occur only as a self-serving, self-preserving phenomenon. It won't contain even a dram of the "moral authority" that Trump, too, has never possessed.